


Shoulders

by mountain_ash



Series: Anatomy of Destiel [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Ficlet, Fluff, Past Abuse, Protective Castiel, anatomy of destiel, destiel through the seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16468274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_ash/pseuds/mountain_ash
Summary: Castiel re-built Dean atom by atom. He knows the burdens his shoulders carry and the life they reveal.





	Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the process of studying for my boards, so I'm working some of that study material into a series I'm calling 'Anatomy of Destiel' to help me learn it. It's going to be very imagery and body focused, with plenty of Destiel feels <3 There may be occasional artwork. 
> 
> Originally on [tumblr](http://a-mountain-ash.tumblr.com/post/179563821910/shoulders)!

Building Dean's shoulders was my favorite part. The shoulder is a miraculous joint, but I didn't understand as such until had to reassemble it atom by atom. It might be assumed that the brain or the nervous system would be more delicate work, but they were simple. Neurons connected to neurons in tightly woven paths on intricate trajectories, passing messages amongst one another through carefully calibrated chemical signals. In a way, it works very much like a microcosm of heaven, each region serving a role to ensure the greater whole is functioning well. That is precisely why it bored me. I had no part to play in the wonder that makes each brain unique. Dean's soul would do that once I'd returned it to its body. The shoulders, however, are beautiful, complex things.

In theory, they shouldn't work. In reality, they do and they don't. Evolved with impeccable complexity to ensure maximal mobility, the shoulder is a thing of delicate cooperation between a host of competing demands. It must freely swing in complete arcs of motion, lift heavy loads, and dexterously manipulate objects, all while hanging from the body connected to a socket the size of a dollar coin by a host of thin of tendons and ligaments. Beyond the pure biomechanical enigmas are the sociological ones. The shoulders metaphorically hold all our burdens, and their pain and their dysfunctions represent the individual struggles of each human's path through life. This is why Dean's shoulders were my favorite part.

Dean's soul is a thing of beauty: sad, dark, loving, eternally willing to change, even when his mind is not. He carried that heavy soul in the set of his shoulders, wide and protective. The muscles of his trapezius were knotted in tension from late nights hunched over books seeking salvation from his fate in Hell. The bone at the back of his humerus was compressed and fractured from too many poorly controlled shots with a rifle when he was too young to handle the gun correctly. The ligaments holding his shoulder together were too stretched and too loose from one too many demons flinging his body by the length of his arm. The smooth surface of his left scapula splintered and broken from being thrown into a wall by his father in a drunken rage after the shtriga almost killed Sam. That one always catches a little when lifts his arm over his head, the muscles unable to coordinate their firing just right anymore after the ancient injury. Often times his right hand falls asleep when he drives his Impala because the nerves running beneath his collar bone are compressed by the lump there in the middle from when a ghost through him down some stairs and it set at the wrong angle because he didn't go to the doctor.

I dared not heal any of Dean's old wounds. I knew not the man, nor how humans viewed these flaws in their architecture. Within the confines of my old vessels, I'd felt not pain, nor the physical limitations of a flesh body. My grace had healed all damage upon habitation, and any natural biomechanical imperfections affected me not. It was impossible for me to say whether humans held any sort of attachment to them, and regardless, my job was not to change Dean Winchester, and at the very beginning, my job was all that I was.

Despite that, I couldn't help but be changed by this first encounter and the shear vastness of its impact showed in the mark I inadvertently left upon Dean's skin when I raised him from Perdition. The first time I saw the mark, a woman named Pamela showed it to me. I sensation I did not recognize at the time flowed through me and I bowed me head until she forced me to show my face. I know now that that sensation I felt at the time was shame, at having let the experiences of my time with Dean overtake my intentions and control. I'd left him branded, physically marked by the intensity of my time rebuilding his vessel. That handprint was a sign of the joy I'd felt melding his muscles and bones and soul all together in one delicate and masterful collaboration. Dean would hold the world on his shoulders and I had built those shoulders. They were perfect.

And yet they almost failed.

I thought I had done so well, blending the four tiny ligaments into the ring of cartilage that completed the ball and socket. I thought my collar bone and shoulder blade would work in perfect concert to lift Dean's fist in rebellion against Michael. I had almost been wrong.

But Dean succeeded. He surpassed what his vessel should have been capable of enduring and there I saw new beauty that I had not before.  It was a beauty I was incapable of producing or experiencing for myself, and therefore I was all the more drawn to it. Yet at a time I was most drawn to it, I could not let myself have it and so I stayed hidden and did what I had not allowed myself before. I changed him.

When Dean played catch with Ben and winced in pain because the tendon holding tight to the top of his humerus got trapped each time he threw the ball, I healed it. He could play with Ben all he wanted now, and not feel pain.

When he made love to Lisa and the rough surface of his shoulder blade cut jaggedly across his ribcage in stuttered motions that should have been fluid, I smoothed its path.

When he pushed and pulled the rake across his yard until the reds, and oranges, and browns of the leaves crowded together in on neat pile and the years of wear and tear shot pain through his bicep with each stroke, I eased its inflammation.

I no longer heal Dean in the shadows of secrecy. He knows that I've erased the evidence of his father's abuse and his stolen childhood. He now asks for me to clear the signs of the most recent monsters. I relish in each moment, finding beauty in creating a new existence for Dean, free of old pains, open to new futures.

I can't heal this new wound though, cut deep through layers of skin and muscle, fractured bone and severed nerves.  The monster inhabiting Dean put him back together as best he could, but this wound could not be healed properly, burrowed too deeply by just the right weapon.

The bones inside are held together by glue. The nerves trace their intricate patterns through his muscles and joints, but the impulses are sluggish and congested, blocked by where the channels and pathways didn't form together just so. When the muscles contract, there's a hitch in their path where they try to work through scar tissue. Worst is the skin, sealed together by hasty stitches and poorly dressed, so it bunches up in a keloid formation. Dean sees it every morning and remembers. I see it and remember, too, for his memory is now mine.

Dean's shoulders are still my favorite. They carry his burdens, they carry my grace, they hold me close when we are finally alone. This time, I cannot heal the evidence of his traumas, but I can lend my own shoulders in lifting them.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always appreciated and come visit me on [tumblr](http://a-mountain-ash.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
